I've written about health care for more than two decades, starting from my native Iowa where I covered the presidential campaign bus rides of Bill and Hillary Clinton through the Hawkeye state talking health reform and the economy. I have covered the rise, fall and rise again of health reform, chronicling national trends as well as the influence of Barack and Michelle Obama from Chicago's South Side on changes to the U.S. health system from my base in Chicago. I am the author of the new Forbes signature series book, "Inside Obamacare: The Fix For America's Ailing Health Care System." I was health care business reporter at the Chicago Tribune (1998-2011) and previously wrote for Modern Healthcare magazine when first arriving in Chicago in 1993. Prior to that, I wrote for several Iowa newspapers including the Des Moines Register. These days, I contribute stories to the New York Times, Chicago Medicine magazine and teach in the University of Iowa School of Journalism MA in Strategic Communication program. You can see me nationally on Fox News Channel's "Forbes on Fox" show. In Chicago, you can hear my health segments and business analysis on WBBM newsradio 780 and 105.9 FM. I am passionate about health literacy when it comes to explaining the complexities of health care. A better understood health system may save someone some money or their life.

The new Abbott Laboratories, which spun off its drug business into a new company known as AbbVie, plans to push into emerging markets like China, Russia and Brazil where spending on diagnostic tests, medical devices and nutritional products is on the rise. (Image via CrunchBase)

The new Abbott Laboratories (ABT) begins its 125th year focused on sales of medical devices, established generic drugs, diagnostic tests and nutritionals with an eye on emerging markets led by Russia, China and Brazil that are free of austerity measures sweeping Europe as well as the Affordable Care Act here in the U.S.

With its former proprietary drug business split off at the beginning of this month into AbbVie (ABBV), Abbott Labs chairman Miles White Wednesday expressed confidence his smaller company will have a global impact, particularly in emerging markets where spending on health care is on the rise.

Even in markets such as Europe, where “austerity” has led to cuts in health care spending and slow growth for Abbott, White told Wall Street analysts and investors his new company will be ready to capitalize in higher growth markets.

“We see significant opportunities ahead,” White said on an 80-plus minute conference call. “The global population is growing older and living longer.”

The global strategy is partly designed to blunt the impact of moves in the U.S. under the Affordable Care Act and other moves by the Obama administration to choose the best product at the lowest price. For example, Abbott executives this morning said competitive bidding introduced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which administers the massive health insurance program for the elderly, will impact company sales.

Thus, White is stressing the push outside the U.S.

The new Abbott is driven by four businesses that are about equal in size buoyed by its nutritionals business that includes Similac infant formula and its adult line of Ensure drinks and Glucerna bars. Other lines will compete against the likes of Pfizer (PFE) such as Abbott’s established pharmaceuticals such as the antibiotic Clarithromycin or the prescription painkiller Brufen, a version of ibuprofen. The new Abbott also sells medical devices such as artery-clearing drug-eluting Xience stent or its absorbable stent known as Absorb and diagnostic tests used in laboratories and hospitals such as its Architect platform.

In the fourth quarter, Abbott said nutritional sales were up 10 percent to $1.7 billion, which helped offset largely flat sales of established pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, global sales of laboratory diagnostics were up 5.7 percent to $908 million despite flat sales in the U.S.

About 80 percent of Abbott’s diagnostic sales are outside the U.S. “with more than 35 percent in emerging markets like Russia, Brazil and China,” Abbott said in a statement. White told analysts a consultant he did not name once advised against selling certain diagnostic tests in China. He was glad he didn’t listen.

“In those markets, I want a bigger surfboard,” White said.

Abbott said its fourth-quarter 2012 earnings, which included the drug business now a part of AbbVie, fell 35 percent thanks largely due to “extinguishing debt” and related costs from the spinoff of the proprietary pharmaceutical sales operation. Here’s a link to Abbott’s earnings report.

For the quarter, Abbott said profits were $1.05 billion, or 66 cents a share, compared with fourth-quarter 2011 profits of $1.6 billion, or $1.02 per share. Sales were up 4.4 percent to $10.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the full year 2012, sales were up only slightly, or 2.6 percent to $39.87 billion.

For this year, the “new” Abbott projected earnings-per-share guidance of $1.98 to $2.04 per share. That was ahead of most analysts’ forecasts.

“We don’t have some gap in there where we are projecting returns or growth that we don’t know that we can deliver,” White said.

Going forward, White suggested potential acquisitions and licensing deals would be in the “device areas or geographic expansion.”

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